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Annissa Essaibi George
As her rival racks up endorsements of major Black and Latino political leaders, Boston mayoral candidate Annissa Essaibi George announced a 46-page “inclusion and justice agenda” aimed at reducing systemic inequalities in access to city government, housing, education and other city services.
The at-large city councilor also pledged at an event in Roxbury announcing the agenda that she would direct $100 million towards implementing the plan if she won.
“Creating a more equitable, inclusive, and just Boston will be a charge in which I will intentionally and deliberately work towards every single day as your mayor. That’s why today I’m proud to release our Equity, Inclusion and Justice Agenda, a plan that can only be informed by showing up in our communities and listening to and learning from our residents,” Essaibi George said in a statement. “As I stated when I first announced my candidacy, I believe in a Boston that sees the inequities and everyday injustices – and then tackles them head on. It will be a constant work in progress to build a better Boston for all, and I look forward to doing that work, together, as your mayor.”
Many parts of the plan recapitulate pledges already made on Essaibi George’s campaign website, and add others suggested during her recent series of roundtable discussions with communities of color, residents, faith-based leaders, organizations and businesses.
While the wide-ranging document touches on many subjects, it notably pledged to, within 100 days, boost the city’s funding for the Boston Home Center and the ONE+Boston mortgage program run by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership and double the city’s $325,000 commitment to the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance’s STASH down payment assistance program with a goal of making the contribution $1 million over time. Also within that timeframe, Essaibi George said she would implement the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act or a similar bill. The bill, also called TOPA, would give renters the right of first refusal to buy their building or designate a nonprofit to do the same if the current owner decides to sell. Housing advocates say the bill is essential to stabilizing gentrifying neighborhoods and protecting working-class renters from rent increases, but landlord groups say it would only increase a seller’s cost and deter merchant developers from building new housing in the city.
Other 100-day pledges in the plan include:
- Increase the city’s linkage affordable housing fees, on top of the 43 percent bump implemented by former Mayor Marty Walsh this spring.
- Change the definition of “area median income” for city affordable housing developments to reflect the lower incomes of many city residents
- Put in place an “anti-speculation tax” aimed at condo buyers who buy units as an investment, “leaving them empty.”
- Create a planning office independent of the Boston Planning & Development Agency charged with mapping out an “inclusive” city plan
- Appoint a cabinet-level staffer who would oversee the Department of Neighborhood Development, Inspectional Services Department and the BDPA.
- Set up a text- and email-based system to notify more of a proposed development’s neighbors about the process.
- “Activate” 100 city-owned lots as affordable housing sites.
The pledges come even as developers and real estate agents have emerged as prominent financial backers of her campaign and her candidacy is touted by some in the real estate community as the “safer” bet compared to her mayoral rival and fellow at-large city councilor, Michelle Wu, who is most publicly associated with calls for dismantling the BPDA and lobbying the legislature to let Boston enact a “rent stabilization” system.
While Essaibi George beat out all other candidates but Wu in last month’s preliminary election, her vote totals showed strength in many of the city’s whiter neighborhoods like South Boston and West Roxbury, and weakness in majority-Black and majority-Latino neighborhoods like Roxbury and Mattapan, with many of those areas backing former economic development chief John Barros, City Councilor Andrea Campbell and acting Mayor Kim Janey. Wu recently racked up endorsements from Janey, City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo and his father, Suffolk Register of Probate Felix D. Arroyo Sr., and several other prominent Black and Latino politicians.
